WoodWing: Create Digital Magazines for the iPad

The release of Apple's iPad means a lot of things; among them: digital magazines. WoodWing (news, site) and a digital concept and design company called The Wonderfactory are some of the first to put their heads together for this specific purpose. Their partnership has turned a mutual vision into reality, and it's shaped like a set of tools that enable publishers to produce content for the iPad in the same way they create content for print.

No More Paper

TIME is one publication that has already used The Wonderfactory and WoodWing's toolset. The magazine's app for the iPad delivers a user experience that takes full advantage of the touch screen capability:

Digital Magazines Made Easy

Sure, it's fancy looking and beneficial, but perhaps the coolest part--at least to the back end people--is that both companies say little change has to be made to the print process in order to get these digtal versions.

"Using newly-developed InDesign plugins, the layouts for any digital magazine can be enriched with interactive multimedia elements like video, slideshows, and dynamic content," said Erik Schut, President of WoodWing Software. "Magazine designers retain full creative control and can work on print and digital issues in parallel. The process is easily reproduced."

"TIME's designers focused on what they do best - creating elegant print - while we ensured the integrity of those designs would be preserved when distributed via the iPad," added David Link, co-founder of The Wonderfactory.

The Digital Age

If the long lines outside Apple stores on Saturday weren't indication enough, the iPad is doing well. In fact, today Apple confirmed their expectations for sales were actually exceeded, topping 300,000 units in the U.S. on day 1 alone.

Moreover, MercuryNews.com reported that over the weekend iPad users downloaded more than 1 million programs for the device and some 250,000+ eBooks.

The turn toward digital magazines is only natural. Provided that the iPad continues to be an enormous success, we'd say WoodWing and The Wonderfactory have secured themselves a cozy little spot in the digital age.

Yeah, You Want It

While both companies claim to be primarily focused on large to mid-size publishers, some low-cost solutions for the smaller guys are in the works. Additionally, support for other tablet devices is said to be on the agenda, along with Flex and HTML5 implementations.

WoodWing invites all interested parties to learn more about the tools by joining their webinar on April 15, 2010.